The Tokyo International Film Festival opens its doors once more for its 37th edition, kicking off on 28 October with the world première of Kazuya Shiraishi’s action-packed jidaigeki period piece 11 Rebels, and closing 10 days later with Christophe Honoré’s spry, metatextual comedy, Marcello Mio.
The full line-up comprises 110 films, with the legendary Hong Kong actor Tony Leung serving as the president of the International Competition Jury. The competition strand is made up of fifteen titles, and includes world premieres of Yang Lina’s Big World, Philip Yung’s Papa, Sergio Graciano’s The Englishman’s Papers.
Get more Little White Lies
Throughout the rest of the programme, the Asian Future strand highlights 10 world premieres from emerging filmmakers across the much wider Asian region: from Turkey, Iran, Malaysia, Afghanistan and China. It also boasts the new addition of a Women’s Empowerment strand, with nine films by female filmmakers including Eva Trobisch’s Ivo, Maryam Moghadam, Behtash Sanaeeha’s My Favourite Cake and Tamura Naoki’s Doctor‑X the Movie.
Other key sections are animation – which includes Chris Sanders’ The Wild Robot, Kuno Yoko and Yamashita Nobuhiro’s Ghost Cat Anzu, Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail and a 4K restoration of Masuda Toshio’s 1977 Space Battleship Yamato – and Nippon Cinema Now, focusing on emerging trends in Japanese cinema across 12 titles.
Elsewhere across the festival, there are gala screenings of Audrey Diwan’s Emmanuelle, Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch and Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, and audiences will be able to attend masterclasses with the likes of Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Sammo Hung, as well as a symposium on the work of retired Hungarian maestro, Béla Tarr. LWLies will be on the ground and reporting from this major celebration of cinema, so keep an eye on our channels for updates
The 37th Tokyo International Film Festival runs from 28 October to 6 November in the Hibiya-Yurakucho-Marunouchi-Ginza area.
